Organizational Behavior

Session 3

Impacts of beliefs and attitudes about

self and others on organizational

behaviors

Beliefs and attitudes about self

Self-efficacy: “beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (Bandura, 1997, p. 3)

Wood and Bandura (1989) found that in organisational settings, individuals with high self-efficacy work harder and longer than individuals with low self-efficacy.

Beliefs and attitudes about self (continued)

Self-esteem: refers to the extent to which a person feels self-worth in a domain. In addition, it indicates the degree to which an individual likes herself/himself.

Consequences of self-esteem

Individuals with low self-esteem are more likely to seek approval from others than individual with high self-esteem.

Research has shown that individuals with high self-esteem take more risks in job selection and are more likely to choose unconventional jobs than individuals with low self-esteem.

Self-esteem scale

A classic scale of self-esteem has been developed by Rosenberg in 1989.

Please read the items and rate them for yourself.

Beliefs and attitudes about self (continued)

Self-interdependence: the extent to which an individual perceives him/herself to be interdependent with other group members (Markus & Kitayama, 1991)

Self-independence: the extent to which an individual perceives her/himself to be independent from other group members.

Beliefs and attitudes about self (continued)

Research has shown that individuals with independent self-construals are more likely to openly express their ideas than individuals with interdependent self-construals (Gudykunst et al., 1996).

Individuals with interdependent self-construals are more likely to give help to their colleagues.

Individuals with interdependent self-construals are more likely to cooperate with their in-group members than out-group members.

Beliefs and attitudes about others

Stereotyping When we judge someone on the basis of

our perception of the group to which he or she belongs, we are using stereotyping.

Examples:“older employees can’t learn new skills”,

“Overweight employees lack discipline”, “Asian employees are hardworking and conscientious”

Beliefs and attitudes about others (continued)

Entity theorist and incremental theorists:

Entity theory refers to a view that human characteristics are fixed and don’t change much with experience.

Incremental theory refers to a view that human characteristics are malleable and can be changed with experience and can be developed.

Beliefs and attitudes about others (continued)

Self-fulfilling prophecy is that people’s expectations or

beliefs determine their behavior and performance, thus serving to make their expectations come true.

Reading

Please read page 130 to 139 of the text book.

Assignments 2

Please read the “implicit theories of managers” article and answer to exercise 2.

A self-efficacious cat!